How Does a Managed SOC Work?

Businesses invest in cybersecurity not necessarily to turn a profit, but to prevent losses so great they could shutter the operation. We are living in a world in which chief information officers admit that hackers present a material threat to three out of every four companies.

The estimated cost of cybersecurity failures by year’s end is expected to exceed $450 billion in the U.S. alone. American companies ranked third worst in terms of lost or compromised data. Going forward, industry leaders are tasked with investing capital to avoid potentially crushing losses. One of the best defenses cybersecurity experts have formulated involves employing a managed Security Operations Center (SOC).

Challenges of Creating an On-Premises SOC?

To understand a managed SOC, it may prove insightful to step back and appreciate an on-premises one. A SOC brings together a team of cybersecurity experts for the sole purpose of enhancing across-the-board data protection. Companies typically carve out a designated space where professionals with varying skills oversee wide-reaching technologies, network users, endpoint devices and other digital elements. It would be something of an understatement to say the SOC staff enjoy carte blanche when it comes to ferreting out potential threats.

There are two inherent problems with creating an on-premises SOC — cost and expertise. Staffing a SOC tends to be extremely expensive. The average cybersecurity analyst earns upwards of $100,000 annually. Hiring a complete team, including retirement benefits, healthcare and ongoing cybersecurity education and training, balloons the cost of a SOC. Keep in mind that an effective operations center requires vigilant monitoring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

On the other side of the proverbial coin, there was an expertise gap of approximately 4 million in 2023. The shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals needed to run a SOC is only expected to increase. The point is that even corporations that can afford the high price of an on-premises SOC struggle to onboard the right people and maintain a staff.

How Does a Managed SOC Work?

A managed SOC brings all the elements of its on-premises counterpart to the table. The primary difference is that a managed SOC usually involves working with a third-party IT firm with a specialization in data protection. Because the firm hires, trains and invests in its employees’ ongoing education for multiple clients, a single business does not have to pay all the costs. Instead, the expenses are spread out, and that allows companies to partner with a managed IT company with cybersecurity expertise at a fraction of the cost. Essentially, a managed SOC delivers highly sought-after expertise at a scalable rate.

It’s important to understand that working with a third party managed SOC does not result in personnel sitting in one of your offices. The following cybersecurity and managed IT professionals work remotely.

• SOC Manager: As the team leader, the SOC manager monitors staff efforts and processes and typically reports to your organization’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
• Cybersecurity Engineers: These experts craft the architecture needed to launch a SOC. They run risk assessments, test security features and make recommendations about best practices.
• Analysts: Sometimes referred to as “security investigators,” analysts are a type of first responder. They field threat alerts and probe their legitimacy. When anomalies or imminent threats are detected, they confine and expel them.
• Threat Hunters: These cybersecurity professionals play offense. Rather than wait for an attack to get underway, they seek and destroy malicious applications. They are both a front line of defense and fail-safe protection should a skilled hacker slip past the automated detection system.

Depending on the size of the organization and its security needs, a managed SOC team may include other positions. The core duties involve syncing with your digital infrastructure and deploying AI and machine learning technologies to alert them about unusual user activity, anomalies and imminent brute force attacks. The cybersecurity experts overseeing the managed SOC continually refine the way alerts are triggered, reducing the number of false positives to maximize efficiency.

Benefits of Leveraging a Managed SOC

Building and staffing an on-premises SOC can run north of $1 million annually. That figure includes 24-hour staffing and infrastructure. Those costs will only increase as workforce shortages drive salaries up and companies are tasked with purchasing and upgrading software. For these reasons, the greatest benefit of utilizing a managed SOC over an in-house one is cost. Adding to the value of outsourcing, third-party firms usually offer scalable packages that provide the cost flexibility growing companies require. These are other benefits companies gain by leveraging a managed SOC.

Enhanced Cybersecurity Intelligence

The cybersecurity experts who integrate the advanced warning and detection systems continue to refine the process. They can drill down by improving AI, machine learning and the algorithms that set off notifications. For example, legitimate users follow regular digital pathways in terms of software usage, file access and task fulfillment. When a hacker takes advantage of someone’s username and password, the cybercriminal targets valuable and sensitive data. Should the user activity not match up, alerts are triggered and SOC team members respond in real time.

Increased Network Visibility

Some outside the managed IT and cybersecurity trades see a SOC’s purpose as solely protecting items such as bank accounts, credit cards, personnel records and other data. Truth be told, a managed SOC provides sweeping digital visibility. The central strategy is to bring all online activities under one umbrella for the purpose of monitoring and protecting the organization. That concept is not limited to specific digital information.

Sophisticated hackers have devised schemes that are increasingly difficult to detect, largely because they do not target data in a straightforward fashion. Upstreaming and zero-day attacks exploit software vulnerabilities that often fly under the radar. A well-conceived, managed SOC thoroughly vets software for weaknesses, schedules patches and updates and knows when it’s time to purge outdated programs. The SOC staff can see the entire network and defend it.

Proactive Threat Monitoring

Outdated cybersecurity models use what is commonly referred to as break-and-fix. A hacker breaks into your system, wreaks havoc, steals information and the security staff try to expel the intruder and fix the damage. The financial and reputational losses suffered from this reactive approach can incapacitate a business.

By contrast, a managed SOC takes proactive measures to deter, detect and expel threat actors before they access sensitive and valuable data. Circling back to upstream and zero-day attacks, experts vigilantly assess software for deficiencies and hidden malicious code. Hunting down threats before they become a problem changes hackers’ view of your operation. By onboarding a managed SOC, you are no longer considered low-hanging fruit ready to be plucked.

Automated Efficiency

The use of advanced technologies is an essential element of both an on-premises and managed SOC. When fully integrated and expertly refined, AI and machine learning provide non-stop threat detection that does not necessarily require a human to ferret through every use activity. As the SOC team establishes common workflow trends and digital access, technologies can be used for automated security oversight. This allows human security professionals to deal with credible and imminent threats. Issues that routinely trigger false positives are not addressed with the same urgency, making the overall cybersecurity process inherently more efficient.

Regulatory Compliance

It’s no secret that stringent and evolving data security regulations have become a burden to growing organizations. The federal government has rolled out important data protection mandates that include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and the recent Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), among others.

These nationwide laws continue to be updated, and states are passing rules that require additional cybersecurity measures to maintain regulatory compliance. Companies that enter the global marketplace run into the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To say keeping pace with new and changing data protection rules is a Herculean task would be an understatement. The good news is that a managed SOC can account for data protection policies and keep your organization in compliance.

Incident Reporting

Having a managed SOC in place does not mean hackers are simply going to scuttle their attempts to pilfer off confidential information. Cybercriminals will test your security measures and infrastructure in hopes of finding a vulnerability. While those efforts generally prove futile, they have critical value. The managed SOC team members report the digital trails left by hackers. This information forms the basis for cybersecurity strategies and policies going forward. Knowing the modus operandi of the enemies of honest business professionals helps security teams harden defenses and cure perceived vulnerabilities.

Risk Management Improvement

In many respects, cybersecurity is fundamentally about risk management. Cybercriminals never stop hatching schemes to breach business networks and make off with ill-gotten gains. Security experts are tasked with identifying these criminal processes, thwarting them and crafting infrastructure such as a managed SOC to prevent future incursions. The advanced solutions involved in a managed SOC allow companies to minimize risk by proactively addressing vulnerabilities.

As the SOC powers up, its refinements produce critical reporting that allows decision-makers to harden their attack surface. Even the bottomless resources of the federal government cannot erase 100 percent of an agency’s risk. But a SOC makes data theft so difficult that garden variety hackers lack the skills to breach the networks and advanced persistent threats prefer to invest their criminal time, energy and resources elsewhere.

Cybersecurity Awareness

Although a managed SOC is a remote cybersecurity defense, its staff members can interact with a company’s employees. When partnering with a third-party managed IT firm with cybersecurity expertise, part of the scalable services can include cybersecurity awareness training. The SOC staff can send out routine alerts to front-line workers, looping them into threats such as emailing phishing schemes, malware-laced look-alike platforms and other dangers. Providing company employees and stakeholders with critical information on a regular basis organically improves an organization’s security culture.

Disaster Recovery Capabilities

The managed SOC team is usually required to conduct regularly scheduled backups of digital assets, programs and essential business infrastructure. Should a natural disaster strike, the SOC team can be empowered to transfer these assets so that operations can continue at a different physical location. Disaster recovery also accounts for the fact that the overwhelming majority of data breaches are caused by human error. If an otherwise valued employee makes a critical mistake that results in a ransomware attack, the SOC has backups stored out of the reach of cybercriminals.

Red River Can Secure Your Data with a Managed SOC

Protecting valuable and confidential data grows increasingly difficult as hackers revise their criminal schemes. The financial losses, downtime, regulatory fines and tarnished reputation that accompany a data breach or ransomware takeover can hamstring an otherwise productive operation. If you are interested in learning more about the advanced data protection of managed SOC, Red River has solutions. Contact us today, and let’s get the process started.